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Email Turns 34 196

Posted by Zonk from the venerable-old-coot dept.
34019 writes "The original Gmail engineer, Paul Buchheit, reminisces on the creation of email, and how he designed Gmail in hopes of it improving the way we communicate. From the article: 'Of course that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to build Gmail. I rely on email, a lot, but it just wasn't working for me. My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble; sometimes four different people would all reply to the same message with the same answer because they didn't notice the earlier replies. I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it. With Gmail I got the opportunity to change email - to build something that would work for me, not against me.'
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Email Turns 34 More

Email Turns 34

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  • It's true (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:40PM (#13853569)
    We were plotting against Paul. We were trying to destroy his life, bit by bit.

    -- Paul's former email

  • Gmail is to email as... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jg21 ( 677801 ) * on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:44PM (#13853583)
    ...Socrates is to Bette Midler.

    • Re:Gmail is to email as... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Glonoinha ( 587375 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:57PM (#13853643) Journal
      Quite honestly, if GMail let me drag something into a folder and it would disappear from what is effectively the root, it would become the end-all, be-all of email. Yes - I know I can do stupid shit with tags and whatever ... but at the end of the day, when I fire up email, I don't want the root of the inbox filled with every damn email I have ever received. For whatever reason, perhaps as simple as not wanting whoever is standing over my shoulder when I fire up email see the last 50 emails I got (subject lines, or senders, or whatever) - let me drag that shit out of the root and when I want to see it, I will go to wherever I dragged it. And no, archive isn't the same.

      Hotmail sucks ass, and Outlook Express sucks ass, but despite their being the penultimate of ass-sucking when coupled together - they let me keep the inbox fairly clean so a bunch of incriminating emails aren't on display when I fire up my email.

      • Re:Gmail is to email as... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:33PM (#13853807)
        And no, archive isn't the same.

        Why not?
        The point of archiving is to make the inbox a real inbox - a place where all the email you currently need (e.g. new mail, things you still need to take care of). You should have very little mail in your inbox at any given time (I average at ~6). Everything else should be archived and accesed through labels or search. Try it out, it's great.
        • 6 mails in your inbox? I started out with the labels for folders approach (and I used to be a folder freak, with dozens of rules set up in Outlook to filter my mail), but now I don't have labels any more. I just have my inbox. It's currently got 12761 unread mails in it. I skim the subject, read what I need to, and don't worry about the rest. If there's something I need for later, I star it or mail to myself with a more proper subject. When I want it, I search for it. Simple as that.
          • just 12,761 unread messages? pfsht.
            I have rules that send all new messages to one of 32 different printers in my building. When I'm walking around I just snatch an email off a printer, skim it, crumple it up and throw it away! If there's something I need I have my assistant do it. Simple as that.

      • And no, archive isn't the same.

        Right, it is not the same, but archive + labels are a logical extensions of what folders do. If you apply a label to an email and then archive it, it's the equivalent of moving it to a folder named after the label. Click on the label on the left hand list, and it's the same as clicking on an inbox folder. The only difference might be the hierachical structure folders have, but that can be reproduced by applying multiple labels to the same conversation.

        Might not be as frien

      • Re:Gmail is to email as... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Have you tried using the 'archive' button on the e-mail once you're done reading them? It's the functionality you are asking for.

        You know, exploring the interface a bit before bitching about it can be useful. And the archive button is actually quite proeminent.

  • You're all invited! (Score:5, Funny)

    by QuantaStarFire ( 902219 ) * <ed...kehoe@@@gmail...com> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:45PM (#13853590)

    E-mail is throwing a birthday party! It's next week, the same day as Spam.

    Unfortunately, they agreed that Spam should send the invites. Expect them in your mailbox soon along with the free drugs and Nigerian relatives.

    • Speaking of spam, it's funny that he mentions spam at all, as the spam filter is definitely one of the weaker points of Gmail IMO. I typically get between 10 and 30 false negatives and about 1 or 2 false positives a day, out of a total spam volume of typically about 350 to 450 a day.

      Not exactly great, and certainly much, much worse than my previous, shell-based email solution (which used bogofilter for spam filtering). Gmail's still good for other reasons, of course, but spam filtering is something that def
      • I can't even catch my false positives because I have about 9000 spam messages in the folder currently. There should be an "I'm not sure" category that we can check and reduce false positives/negatives.

  • the aol (Score:2, Funny)

    by ToddFFW ( 889756 )
    wow... i wish i was on the AOL 34 years ago. I bet I could download the whole AOL over my modem in just one minute!

  • History of the term: Snail Mail? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Anybody know when the term Snail Mail was first published?

    I have a postmarked envelope from the early 90's mentioning Snail Mail on the front.

    Anybody else?

  • Network email is not 34 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:48PM (#13853607)
    Acording to wikipedia, network email existed prior to 1971.

    The main contribution that happened in 1971 was the introduction of the "@" symbol and the use of email on ARPANET. But prior to 1971 there was email being sent between computers.

    From wikipedia:

    "The early history of network e-mail is also murky; the AUTODIN system may have been the first allowing electronic text messages to be transferred between users on different computers in 1966, but it is possible the SAGE system had something similar some time before."

    I don't wish to take away any from what Ray Tomlison acheived in 1971 which was a great contribution to introduce email to ARPA net and make it really convenient.

  • ook... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kuzb ( 724081 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:52PM (#13853620)

    The original Gmail engineer, Paul Buchheit, reminisces on the creation of email, and how he designed Gmail in hopes of it improving the way we communicate.

    Sorry, but I don't buy the google altruistic angle - they did this so they could better serve us ads. This is all about information, and who controls it. I doubt highly that it had anything at all to do with improving anyone's way of life. Google is a corporation, it's primary motive is, and always will be, profit.

    • Re:ook... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShadeEagle ( 153172 ) * <tehshingen@ g m a i l . c om> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @02:53PM (#13853627) Journal
      Doesn't mean they can't make our lives easier while they're at it.

      • Re:ook... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Slashdiddly ( 917720 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:31PM (#13853799)
        You mean in the sense pork industry makes life easier for hogs? I mean - yay, free food!

        I know the humanity is still trying to get out of an age where the struggle for physical survival leaves privacy concerns far behind. But that balance is changing. In 20-30 years, when early idealists within Google are long gone and beancounters have taken over, your data is still there. Near its sunset, Google has the potential of being 100x more evil than Microsoft could ever hope to be.

        Move from desktop apps to web services has many advantages that I won't bother repeating. A lot of those advantages are only possible because of shift of control from end user to the service provider. Like any new technology, this is a double-edged sword.

        • Re:ook... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @04:00PM (#13853932) Journal
          In 20-30 years, when early idealists within Google are long gone and beancounters have taken over, your data is still there. Near its sunset, Google has the potential of being 100x more evil than Microsoft could ever hope to be.

          A lot of those advantages are only possible because of shift of control from end user to the service provider. Like any new technology, this is a double-edged sword.
          A valid point, and maybe a good lobbying point to force ISPs to stop blocking ports 80 and 443 so we can all run our own web servers and store all our data on our home boxes, no matter where we ultimately access it from.

          • Re:ook... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Slashdiddly ( 917720 )
            While the practice of blocking ports is evil and customers should avoid any ISP that engages in it, I don't think personal web servers is a solution. Just like you cannot expect majority of car owners to be their own mechanics (which was the norm early on, btw), you cannot expect moms and pops maintaining private web services. Even if it was easy to do (like plugging in a tivo-like appliance that does webmail), you give up a number of advantages that only an operation benefiting from economies of scale has.

            • Re:ook... (Score:4, Interesting)

              by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:04PM (#13854448) Journal
              I don't think personal web servers is a solution. Just like you cannot expect majority of car owners to be their own mechanics
              Most people aren't mechanics, but they can still drive cars, and when they have a problem, they hire a mechanic to service their car. This would be the same thing.

              I like having access to my computer from wherever I am. But now I'm seeing people who know squat about computers who are still capable of running a file server or a game server from their home box. If they can do that (and they can barely figure out how to find a file they've just written and saved) ...

              The only things stopping most people from running a home server are:

              1. They don't see a need to yet
              2. Their ISP blocks ports
              When they DO see a need or a desire, they do it. They get around the port blocking by going to port 8000, or 8080. The first time that they see a coworker who doesn't have to go back home to retrieve a file sitting on their home box will sell them on it.
              • Most people aren't mechanics, but they can still drive cars, and when they have a problem, they hire a mechanic to service their car. This would be the same thing.

                No, it isn't. Running a webserver is a far more complex thing than driving a car. Driving a car may at most be likened to reading a web page in a browser. Car analogies suck, because cars do so few things.

                Putting a server on the Internet implies that you take responsibility. Are end users ready to do that?

                • No, it isn't. Running a webserver is a far more complex thing than driving a car. Driving a car may at most be likened to reading a web page in a browser. Car analogies suck, because cars do so few things.

                  Cars kill people every day.

                  Driving a car implies responsibility. End users ARE literlly responsible for life-and-death decisions all the time, and yet they cope.

                  End users ARE putting web servers on the net. And ftp servers. And game servers. And chat servers. Its not that big a deal. Heck, most linux

                  • Actually, web servers are far more complicated.

                    Cars: one ignition, one steering wheel, brakes, clutch.
                    Webserver: basic configuration, chroots, security, modules, CGI, permissions, access control (who, when, from where, to where), updates, other addons, DNS, .....

                    Computers are not devices, which do one thing and do it well. Computers are complex systems which can do a lot of things.

                    Software is complicated. It is hard to create good software. Secure software is even harder.

                    Perhaps you missed the fact that spa

                    • Actually, web servers are far more complicated.

                      Cars: one ignition, one steering wheel, brakes, clutch.
                      Webserver: basic configuration, chroots, security, modules, CGI, permissions, access control (who, when, from where, to where), updates, other addons, DNS, .....

                      No, cars are a LOT more complicated than a general-purpose computer. The average person could not ever learn to assemble a car (which can contain up to a couple dozen computers, all with specialized code), but high-school kids make money by assem

    • Re:ook... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by notthe9 ( 800486 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:02PM (#13853663)
      Sorry, but I don't buy the google altruistic angle - they did this so they could better serve us ads. This is all about information, and who controls it. I doubt highly that it had anything at all to do with improving anyone's way of life. Google is a corporation, it's primary motive is, and always will be, profit.

      I don't see how Mr. Buchheit's comment that he "designed Gmail in hopes of it improving the way we communicate" negates that Google does things with the intent of making profit. Just because you do something to make a profit, it doesn't mean that you do not have hopes it will accomplish good things.

      If I designed a bridge, I would hope it would help the way people transported. This does not mean that I am not doing it because I wanted to make money. It does not mean I am claiming some kind of altruism. If people didn't think gmail was improving their life in some way, there would be no one to advertise to.

      • Re:ook... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Damer Face ( 910606 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @04:05PM (#13853956)
        Three reasons to work hard at what you do:

        (i) because you enjoy it;
        (ii) to earn money and buy pretty things;
        (iii) to produce something of quality that other people will appreciate.

        I don't see that any of these are mutually exclusive; I don't see that number three has anything to do with altruism, and I don't see how anyone sensible would claim that it does.

        I think most of us who like gmail think that the engineers who designed did so with all three criteria in mind. Unlike some other software projects.

    • Re:ook... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MysticOne ( 142751 )
      I think the engineers often have the best intentions when it comes to their software ideas. Gmail is no exception. I'm confident the engineers really wanted to change the currently accepted webmail paradigm, and they've done a pretty good job with it.

      The management would be the ones interested in making the money, and they usually pick some fairly unobtrusive ways to do it when it comes to Google. If them showing me small text ads relevent to the e-mails I send means I get 2.5+ GB of storage, searchabili
    • I agree. And several people I know constantly wonder out loud whether Google will be able to keep up their "do no evil" motto.

      My answer to that is: I suspect not. They are a publically traded company now, no? That means they answer to their shareholders now. What usually follows is ugly.
    • Google is good, good! See, they have the same three first letters! Goo!

      And you're on Slashdot! How dare you disrespect the great Google! Take that talk to Redmond, mister. It's not welcome here!

      (Yes, I'm kidding. No, seriously. I'm kidding. As in not flamebait).
    • "From the article: 'Of course that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to build Gmail."

      People tend to react badly if you come out and say, "strive toward complete world domination by the Google Corporation" ;) .
    • Umm... if their motives were to make money by serving ads, wouldn't they want as many people using it as possible, and to do that, wouldn't they want to invent a service that makes people's live easier by improving the way we communicate?

      I'm sure Alexander Graham Bell also had a fairly analogous relationship between money and altruism in inventing the telephone. If you make something that works well, people will use it and improve their lives, and you will make a nice chunk of change in the meantime. What's

  • Pardon me for wanting to sign up for it without being 'invited' - a great way for Google to build social web information while maintaining the illusion of a clique.

    I think Google's innovations are great, but the Everything's Beta syndrome, in email, in Usenet news archiving, etcetera... It's all wearing a little thin.

    • Yes they are gathering great social data.

      As for being BETA, who gives a toss honestly? It's just a name given to something. Google's BETA for their Gmail services outshines many other companies stable products. Keyboard shortcuts, nice spell checker, auto completion of address, massive storage, conversation view, etc etc. How may other companies had or even have anything that is is close to that?

      If you worry so much about something being called BETA/ALPHA and so forth, you need re-evaluate your views, are
      • Do you want to address what I said, or just rebut what you're capable of by twisting my argument?

        To address what YOU said, the 'beta' label implies that it's subject to change (or disappearance entirely) more than even the low standards for permanence on the web. Do you see this as an immaterial consideration in choosing services which we will come to considerably rely upon?

    • What's with all the paranoia?

      The invite system is a neat way to limit the user pool as they expanded the servers and to prevent spammers from signing up for 100+ accounts (and taking all the human-readable ones). It's their way of trying to make every address tied to a human being; hence the system of signing up with a phone number.
    • That's stupid. If they want to build your social network, they'll just check who you e-mail often and who e-mail you often. Much easier and much more accurate.

      I just donated 100 invites to this website today : http://www.invitationgmail.info/ [invitationgmail.info]

      I wonder how they are going to track all my big network of friend. Especially since they refresh my 100 invites daily.
      • Hey, that's pretty cool. I'm donating some invites right now. For those who can't read French, all you have to do to donate is send your invites to donateur@invitationgmail.info - they automatically create an account for you with a random password so you can keep track of your statistics and such if you want.

    • Apparently, US Google users can sign up by providing a (US) cell phone number [blogspot.com], to which a link will be sent via SMS text messaging; i.e. signing up without being invited. No reason is given to why you must provide a cell phone number, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just wanted to throttle HD harvesting.

      (I don't personally see the link, but I'm also in Sweden and get the Swedish localization.)

      • Er, you need to give them a cell phone number because that's how they're sending you the SMS. SMS is text messaging for cell phones...

        Also, I'd like to note that there are cell phone plans for much less than $960 for two years or however much was stated by the other poster. In Canada, you can get a phone with Virgin Mobile for as little as $45 (Canadian) per year, plus the cost of the phone. No contract, either. Granted, you won't be able to do a lot of talking with it, but at that price you could us

        • Er, you need to give them a cell phone number because that's how they're sending you the SMS. SMS is text messaging for cell phones...

          Well, duh - No reason given for using cell phone numbers *over other ways*, like one's current email address (which admittedly could turn ridiculous if you haven't got an email address before), one's home/work phone number, or not requiring anything at all in the first place.

    • You can sign up for it now without a referral, but you have to give them a cellphone number and receive a signup code via SMS (it's ostensibly a spam-prevention measure or something).

      https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1 [google.com]
  • Just because you can search through your email doesn't make it less a mess, it's just easier to find things.
    And what is wrong with more than one person answering a question, maybe the 2nd or 5th person has a way better solution.

  • Strange take on history (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:03PM (#13853668) Journal
    How much in that article summary is a Gmail ad, and how much is about the history of e-mail?

    Hmm, better go RTFA...

    Hmm, now wait a minute! It's on Google's blog.

    And it still just talks about Gmail.

  • Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Informative)

    by broothal ( 186066 ) <christian@fabel.dk> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:06PM (#13853682) Homepage Journal
    I appreciate all he's done for Gmail, but he can't take credit for their excellent spam filtering. That credit should go to Steve Linford and XBL [spamhaus.org] from the Spamhaus project [spamhaus.org]. As stated before, Gmail uses XBL [google.dk] to filter out spam. Needless to say - the XBL is pretty cool.
    • Gmail uses [Spamhaus project's] XBL to filter out spam

      It obviously uses much more than that. I also use the Spamhaus XBL-SBL on my own server, but get much more spam on my self-hosted account than on my Gmail acount. Spamassassin labels most of it, but in the end there is still spam left in my Inbox, whereas on Gmail, there is much less.

      So I wonder what they use to filter the messages which have passed through the SBL-XBL.

      (Of course, they filter out .zip attachments too, which is definitely effective with c

  • World's oldest email address? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PapayaSF ( 721268 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:06PM (#13853683) Journal
    So, does anyone still have a working email address from 1971? If not, I wonder who has the world's oldest currently working email address?

  • Outlook is the bane of email (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fossa ( 212602 ) <pat7@g[ ]net ['mx.' in gap]> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:07PM (#13853688) Journal

    MS Outlook is the bane of my email existence. Its inability to group conversation threads encourages replies to include the conversation in its entirety. Its insistence that the reply precede the original drives me batty. I have not used GMail, but that "conversations" thingy looks moderately interesting, if it can display more than a single line of previous messages... Why not an email interface more like IM for conversations? Cut out the redundant headers and signatures. Oh wait, MS Outlook doesn't do the standard "-- \n" signature prefix. Lack of PGP/MIME support just kills me.

    Can't remember where I saw this:

    Because it breaks the thread of conversation.
    Why is top posting bad?

    Also, I'd like a clearer picture of who sent it, who got it (the Cc: list), and when they sent it. I find this very difficult in MS Outlook which I use at work for various reasons mostly outside my control.

    On a slightly different note, there is little I hate more than receiving an email that's been forwarded 700 times and having to scroll through a million >>>>> > >> just to see the message (using mutt for these forwards; perhaps MS Outlook doesn't display all that preceding crud, I don't know).

    In conclusion, Outlook has done more to make email a painful experience than Sat^H^H^HAlan Ralsky himself.

    • MS Outlook is the bane of my email existence. Its inability to group conversation threads encourages replies to include the conversation in its entirety. Its insistence that the reply precede the original drives me batty.

      But gmail places 3 blank lines at the top of the original message when you hit reply. Could it be that Google's Gmail is also guilty of encouraging this barbaric practice?

  • Gmail turns 34 (Score:3, Funny)

    by AlbertEin ( 924430 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:07PM (#13853693)
    Maybe google is waiting for gmail to turn 34 in order to promote it to a finale release and left the beta in the past.....

  • E-mail's not good for critical messages (Score:3, Insightful)

    by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:12PM (#13853712) Homepage Journal
    E-mail's fine and dandy. However, thanks to spam (or, more specifically, the self-righteous, over-zealous spam blocking lists and filters that have been set up because of the spam) e-mail is not a viable option for delivering critical messages anymore. I still use fax and phone to deliver those.

    • Re:E-mail's not good for critical messages (Score:4, Insightful)

      by The Cisco Kid ( 31490 ) * on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:28PM (#13853784)
      Email was never a viable option for guaranteed delivery of messages. Its fast, convenient, easily archivable, and has many other fantastic uses and benefits, but guaranteed delivery of critical messages has *never* been one of them.

      And spamming leeches as well as the negligence of certain software makers is directly the cause of the need for admins of servers to restrict the flood. If it *wasnt* for the blacklists email would already be dead - there would be ten thousand spams for every desirable message, and that would just be in mailboxes of the casual/occasional users - regular users would get far more.

  • Gmail MIME handling behind Yahoo/Hotmail/MS... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by agulliford ( 682381 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:16PM (#13853728)
    Maybe he could celebrate by unscrewing Gmail's MIME handling. That would
    improve the way we communicate. Gmail does not appear to handle recursive
    mime, such as a multipart/related inside a multipart/alternative. Yahoo,
    Hotmail, Thunderbird, Microsoft all seem to manage it ~ Why can't Gmail?

    Example:

    From: someone@domain
    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="[BOUNDRY]"

    This is a multi-part message in MIME format with text and recursed Mime alternative.

    --[BOUNDRY]
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; name="message.txt";
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

    This is the text message. Gmail does not even show this.

    --[BOUNDRY]
    Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="[BOUNDRY2]";

    --[BOUNDRY2]
    Content-Ty pe: text/html; charset=us-ascii
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
    Content-Disposition: inline;

    <HTML>This is the HTML message with pictures. <IMG SRC="cid:whatever"></HTML>

    --[BOUNDRY2]
    Conten t-Type: image/jpeg; name="file.jpg"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-ID: <whatever>
    Content-Disposition: inline;

    /9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEASABIAAD/4QAWRXhpetc

    --[BOUNDRY2]
    --[BOUNDRY]
    • Are you saying that in your example, Gmail will show the HTML part with the image correctly (but not the preceding text/plain part)?

      If so, I don't see what's wrong with that. Multipart/alternative suggests that there are a few equally-viable representations; choosing the richer HTML-based (multipart/relative) one over the text/plain seems sensible.

      Do I misunderstand?

      -ben

    • Gmail works fine (Score:3, Informative)

      by agulliford ( 682381 )
      Time to hang my head in shame!! Gmail works fine.

      I made a coding error, missing off the trailing "--"s from the closing boundries. ie: The closing boundries should be:
      --[BOUNDRY2]--
      --[BOUNDRY]--

      It is just that the others mail clients are more forgiving of fools and led me into a false sense that my code was OK. Very sorry to have posted. Andy.
      • Fair enough, we all do that. MIME is a particular PITA. How about spelling Boundary correctly in your code though?
        I've worked in a place where Category was spelled Catagory in the database, so that misspelling was propagated through the entire codebase and even into URLs; such typos normally have no relevance, but you never know when it will come to bite you...
        Just my 2p

  • It works for you ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by roubles ( 716740 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:34PM (#13853811)
    '... With Gmail I got the opportunity to change email - to build something that would work for me, not against me.'
    It works for you ... but why are you pushing it on all gmail users ?

    Why does any message with the same subject get marked as part of the same conversation ? This is not always desired, and can cause a lot of confusion. This behavior should be configurable.

    I know the gmail has a "delete-nothing" philosophy, but can we still have a keyboard shortcut to move messages to trash ?

    I know google is all about searching ... but sometimes sorting is more intuitive and effecient - especially when there are a boatload of search results ... how about providing the ability to sort email based on certain fields?

    Don't get me wrong. I love gmail. It's right up there with pine and mutt as far as usability is concerned - and thanks to firefox/mozilla, I can use it seamlessly across platforms. I have learn't to live with it's quirks.

    But my point is gmail is still lacking in the area of customization. It's like we all share Paul's gmail.conf file. Just because it works for Paul, doesn't mean it works for everyone else.

    • I know google is all about searching ... but sometimes sorting is more intuitive and effecient - especially when there are a boatload of search results ... how about providing the ability to sort email based on certain fields?
      Tried using filters?

  • Happy, uh, 34th birthday, email (Score:4, Funny)

    by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:34PM (#13853816) Homepage
    34 is a round number in base-34 notation. That's why it's so important to observe this anniversary, in case any non-geeks who happened to be misdirected to this page for some strange reason were wondering.

  • Early Email Hybred . . . (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember in 1974 using IBM's TSO and clists to write messages and print them at distant locations at a large mfg. plant with over 6 million sq. feet under roof and 16,000 employees. Sort of email in - telegraph out, but better than nothing when you could not reach someone by phone, did not have the time to cross a 1700 acre site, needed to give precise information, or wanted a record of what was sent.

    It was a few years later that true email showed up at that company, CCmail on early Macs and something els

  • Love it or Hate it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by uiucgrad ( 325611 )
    Love it or hate it Gmail was a breakthrough for email by generating a renewed interest in improving web based email. Webmail had been basically the same since what, 1996?, then Gmail comes along and turns it on its head. Everyone is a winner as a result. Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google are now all competing and innovating in an area of the web that had been stangnant for years.

  • Samuel F. B. Morse invented email (Score:4, Funny)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @04:15PM (#13854013) Homepage Journal
    It's electronic. It's words. It counts.

    Heck you could even argue it's digital.
  • Joe: "I can't find things on the Internet."
    Google: "We solved your internet search problems!"
    Joe: "Search the Internet!?"
    Google: "Yeah, we indexed the Internet."
    Google: "Also, we solved your desktop search problems!"
    Joe: "How did you do that?"
    Google: "We indexed your hard-drive."
    Joe: "Oh, cool I guess."
    Google: "We solved you email organization problems!"
    Joe: "How?"
    Google: "We indexed your inbox!"
    Joe: "Wow, this brute force thing never gets old with you guys huh?"
  • This link is hardly about e-mail's birthday. Although the first few lines do mention the creation of e-mail, the blog entry itself is an explanation of how great gmail is and why you should sign up. Eh. I'm not that impressed.
  • Oddly enough, the average penis size increased by three inches that year too.
  • From the blog:

    We know that Gmail isn't quite right for everyone yet. We're working on that too - there's still more we can do for the folder-lovers and devout-deleters out there. But wait, there's more! :) We also have a new batch of exciting innovations on the way that we hope will shake things up again and make Gmail even better for even more people.

    I assume this means they will be introducing a delete button and providing a way of hiding mail inside folders instead of just labelling it. As for the res

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